With Microsoft's E3 2012 conference happening today, June 4, in around nine hours as of writing, Halo 4 is likely to be a showpiece of the event. An interview with franchise development director Frank O'Connor, with The Guardian, shares an insight into the team's philosophy and how the game's changes are being managed.

343 Industries has remained quiet on what we can expect, not revealing the enemy Master Chief will face in the campaign and barely showing off multiplayer publicly outside of the returning Battle Rifle. The enemy is expected to be the Forerunners though, the creators of the halo rings, with the Covenant making a cameo.

On how the team developed the idea for housing all the multiplayer components under the "War Games" umbrella, O'Connor said the team came up with the idea three or four years ago - when the studio was founded - and decided to bring all the narrative from the franchise together. That allowed everything to feel "much more comprehensively connected," referring to the lack of narrative in multiplayer.

O'Connor added that Spartan Ops, the episodic co-op adventure pitched as a middle ground between campaign and multiplayer, is "mapped out, at least loosely, for a few years." O'Connor said there will be a beginning, middle and end if the reaction is positive. It was previously unknown how long the episodes would run for.

The first season was confirmed to be free, whether buying the regular or special edition. O'Connor didn't confirm other campaign's pricing, but said the content is being compared to a full campaign.

On the difficulty of making episodic content, O'Connor added the studio has been fortunate to work closely with Microsoft and the Xbox 360 platform. He added the difficultly has been creating the narrative content, not on the engineering side.

The Guardian asked how 343 Industries is allaying fears Halo 4 is copying Call of Duty, with features such as instant respawns and perks. O'Connor said the franchise has to evolve to remain successful. Putting out the same game every year would be "terrible business," despite Call of Duty remaining largely similar since the franchise's refresh with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.

"Typically we find that, as long as we do our jobs correctly, and ensure everything is balanced and fun and makes sense for our game, which has a very specific heart to it, then eventually even the most resistant players will figure out what's good and what's bad for them ... Eventually, they adapt," O'Connor added.

Halo 4 releases for Xbox 360 November 6.